Tila Nguyen (born October 24, 1981 in Singapore), best known as Tila Tequila, is an American glamour model and singer.
Residing in West Hollywood, California, she is best known for her appearances in Stuff, Maxim, Time Magazine, her role as host of the Fuse TV show Pants-Off Dance-Off and her position as the most popular person on MySpace as of April 2006.
She was raised in Houston, Texas.
Nguyen was born in Singapore, where her family emigrated after the Vietnam War. A few years later, they moved again to the Houston neighborhood of Alief, where they lived in rundown housing for most of Nguyen's childhood until they were admitted to a gated community run by a strict Buddhist temple. The family left the community when Nguyen was eight.
As soon as she entered middle school, Nguyen developed a tomboy attitude and started getting in fights. Her behavior eventually got her sent to a boarding school for six months before she was transferred to another school.
As she got older, she used her sister's identification card to enter nightclubs, where she began experimenting with drugs and joined a gang.
In an interview with Import Tuner, Nguyen said she had been searching for a sense of identity: "I was really confused then, 'cause at first I thought I was black, then I thought I was Hispanic and joined a cholo gang".
Later she made some friends outside the gang who briefly helped turn her life around, however her past caught up with her, and she fled to Queens, New York. When she returned to Texas she had a three-way relationship with two girlfriends, but eventually decided she could no longer handle her lifestyle. She then began to focus on her studies and her job(s).
Nguyen realized her life would get worse if she continued living in Texas, so she moved to Hollywood to pursue her career in entertainment. Her career began at the age of eighteen when she was discovered at the Sharpstown Mall by a Playboy scout and was offered a chance to model nude for the magazine.
She declined at first, but she was featured as Playboy’s Cyber Girl of the week on April 22, 2002, and soon thereafter she became the first Asian Cyber Girl of the Month.
Residing in West Hollywood, California, she is best known for her appearances in Stuff, Maxim, Time Magazine, her role as host of the Fuse TV show Pants-Off Dance-Off and her position as the most popular person on MySpace as of April 2006.
She was raised in Houston, Texas.
Nguyen was born in Singapore, where her family emigrated after the Vietnam War. A few years later, they moved again to the Houston neighborhood of Alief, where they lived in rundown housing for most of Nguyen's childhood until they were admitted to a gated community run by a strict Buddhist temple. The family left the community when Nguyen was eight.
As soon as she entered middle school, Nguyen developed a tomboy attitude and started getting in fights. Her behavior eventually got her sent to a boarding school for six months before she was transferred to another school.
As she got older, she used her sister's identification card to enter nightclubs, where she began experimenting with drugs and joined a gang.
In an interview with Import Tuner, Nguyen said she had been searching for a sense of identity: "I was really confused then, 'cause at first I thought I was black, then I thought I was Hispanic and joined a cholo gang".
Later she made some friends outside the gang who briefly helped turn her life around, however her past caught up with her, and she fled to Queens, New York. When she returned to Texas she had a three-way relationship with two girlfriends, but eventually decided she could no longer handle her lifestyle. She then began to focus on her studies and her job(s).
Nguyen realized her life would get worse if she continued living in Texas, so she moved to Hollywood to pursue her career in entertainment. Her career began at the age of eighteen when she was discovered at the Sharpstown Mall by a Playboy scout and was offered a chance to model nude for the magazine.
She declined at first, but she was featured as Playboy’s Cyber Girl of the week on April 22, 2002, and soon thereafter she became the first Asian Cyber Girl of the Month.
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